Second Republic Project Circa 2013

Archived and restored for use as part of Bart Killen's multimedia Poli-Sci course, SecondRepublicProject.com and the other archived websites are required reading for all students opting into this specialized program. Dr. Killen comes to the university from the research and development team First Parallel, where he lead the efforts promoting general vision health in 3rd world countries on behalf of several NGOs. He is credited with organizing the distribution of free reading glasses to the elderly citizens of poorly served countries throughout the world and providing detailed info on glasses and how to care for them. These simple non-prescription reading glasses enable people to comfortably read documents and other printed material. In 2012, Killen was recognized by the US State Department for his work in Nigeria, bringing restorative eyeglasses to schools and small villages. His history explains the "glasses" logo which accompanies much of Dr. Killen's published works. Students may download the complete list of archived websites from Dr. Killen's web page.

Adrian Salbuchi is a political analyst, author, speaker and radio talk-show host in Argentina. He has published several books on geopolitics and economics in Spanish, and recently published his first eBook in English: The Coming World Government: Tragedy & Hope? He is also founder of the Second Republic Project in Argentina.
For several years Adrian Salbuchi posted lengthy comments on the website of Second Republic Project . Below is just a small sample of his posts from the archived 2013 pages of the Second Republic Project.

Second Republic Project

The World according to the Global Power Brokers

When the World Economic Forum released its 2013 Global Risks Report earlier this year, it included an interesting array of proposals which should raise eyebrows and be taken very seriously.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) used risk management exercises to address many of the challenges that we all know about – growing social and political violence, the West’s on-going financial collapse, food and water shortages, and the Elite’s all-time favorite “global terrorism”.

However, they also worked out “proposals for government” and some rather uncanny “X Factors” which, coming as they do from one of the global powers favorite think-tanks, we would do well to read between the lines.

As German playwright Johann W. Goethe once remarked, “coming events cast their shadows forwards”. This is particularly true when those shadows are cast by global power brokers in a position to drive and control those coming events, according to their hearts’ desire, and here we are talking about the World Economic Forum (WEF), founded in 1971. Chaired by Klaus Schwab, who sits on David Rockefeller’s Trilateral Commission, means he has direct access to the families of Rockefeller, Bush, Soros, Kissinger, Brzezinski, Rothschild, Lazard, Harriman, Montbatten, Warburg, Schiff, Borbón, and Orange.

Indeed, it is from behind these curtains that the global elite are planning to impose a world government on all mankind; by designing, planning, and executing the macro-changes that they need to impose upon all countries – each according to need and in their due time – as the process of privatizing global power rams forwards on a global scale.

Two interesting issues are being highlighted by the elite through the WEF: the re-engineering of national governments, and the introduction of so-called “X Factors” into the collective psyche.

“The Future of Government”

Subtitled “Lessons Learned from around the World; Global Agenda Council on the Future of Government”, this WEF piece written in 2011 echoes the Council on Foreign Relations academic, Richard Gardner’s seminal essay written almost forty years ago on the “hard road to the new world order”, where he recommended sovereign Nation-states should be eroded “piece by piece”.

This Report urges governments to “align to the future by adapting and continuously evolving to create value”, adding that governments “need to stay relevant by being responsive to rapidly changing conditions and citizens’ expectations, and build capacity to operate effectively in complex, interdependent networks of organizations and systems across the public, private and non-profit sectors to co-produce public value.”

It then goes on to recommend “what is needed today is Flatter, Agile, Streamlined and Tech-enabled (FAST) government.”

Translating this think-tankese mumbo-jumbo into English, we get:

Flatter = less authority; less sovereignty;

Agile = more malleable; controllable;

Streamlined = less meaningful; less powerful.

Tech-enabled = subservient to those who own/operate/control technological R&D.

Need we remind ourselves that the true mission of sovereign nation-states is not to “adapt and continuously evolve” which, again, is think-tankese for “aligning to the coming world government, or else”?

The true and inalienable functions of sovereign nation-states and their governments are to:

Promote the Common Good of the vast majority of the people over and above the interests and greed of powerful local and/or foreign minorities, that are embedded in local, public and private power structures, and

Defend the country’s national interest in today’s dangerous, even deadly, world made so precisely because of small and illegitimately powerful minorities that have everywhere usurped far too much power.

President Putin of Russia understands this only too well; so does president Xi Jinping of China. Most other countries, however, either never learned this fundamental lesson or seem to have forgotten it.

The global elites suggest a number of measures to “align civil service systems to the requirements of their proposed ‘FAST Governments’ based on such factors as carefully planned workforce reductions coupled with the significant organizational, technological and workforce advances inherent in FAST governments to build slim and streamlined organizations that can thrive in the new world order… Adaptive governments that share labor, services and resources through networked approaches and Gov 2.0 strategies can remain slim while delivering on their mission in effective and innovative ways.”

Yes, I know: this sounds far more like a Corporate Annual Report than a geopolitical piece for creative statesmanship.

“The authors challenge governments to design and implement two new complementary ways of assessing governments’ performance. The first set of measures consists of a holistic approach to government performance along the four axes defined earlier as FAST. The second set of measures focuses on measuring the value of such transformation to citizens.”

If where it says “government”, you read “corporations”, and where it says “citizens”, you read “clients”, then you get a blueprint for private government.

“X-Factors”

Prying farther into what the future holds in store for us, Mr. Schwab’s team partnered with the editors of Britain’s leading science journal, Nature, and came up with a series of “X Factors”, five of which are truly revolutionary game-changers.

Just take a look at them, and then let’s infer what might lie behind the curtain:

1) “Runaway climate change: Is it possible that we have already passed a point of no return and that Earth’s atmosphere is tipping rapidly into an inhospitable state?”This ties in nicely with the Elite’s proposal of imposing a Global Carbon Tax backed by the coming world government’s legal framework, which will serve as a tool to control every country, region, city, and individual by allocating “carbon credits” based on their “carbon footprint”, thereby globally controlling all permissible activity.

2) “Significant cognitive enhancement: Ethical dilemmas akin to doping in sports could start to extend into daily working life; an arms race in the neural ‘enhancement’ of combat troops could also ensue.” Such scientific and technological breakthroughs are all basically controlled through the global network of mega corporate high-tech laboratories. We have an example in Monsanto’s patenting of genetically modified seeds; the leitmotiv is to impose uncrackable, unhackable, high-tech and secret encoding over just about every resource on planet Earth: from seeds to sports competitions; from NSA eavesdropping to military gear. The coming world government will reserve for its exclusive use specific override code factors that will allow them to take over communications systems, power grids and aircraft – military and civilian, in flight and on the ground (9/11 Conspiracy Theorists take note!).

3) “Rogue deployment of geo-engineering: Technology is now being developed to manipulate the climate; a state or private individual could use it unilaterally.” As if we did not know about Project HAARP – High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program – based in Alaska and Norway which has been undoubtedly playing dirty tricks all over the world, creating droughts and flooding!!

It appears that HAARP installations can generate directed high power electromagnetic standing waves over specific geographical areas that interfere with weather fronts, stopping rain clouds in their tracks. This can lead to too much rain on one side (floods) and too little rain on the other (droughts) of these invisible standing waves.

Also, as geologists well know, certain high power precisely aimed radio frequencies can be made to resonate with tectonic plates that are “ready to slip”; so with the right data the HAARP weapon might be used to trigger earthquakes/seaquakes that are “ready to happen”.

4) “Costs of living longer: Medical advances are prolonging life, but long-term palliative care is expensive. Covering the costs associated with old age could be a struggle.” A warning: The mysterious and anonymous Georgia Guidestones erected in 1980 in Ebert, Georgia which read like the global commandments, starts off by recommending the elites “maintain humanity under 500.000.000, in perpetual balance with nature”. Global depopulation is a-coming…

5) “Discovery of alien life: Proof of life’s existence elsewhere in the universe could have profound psychological implications for human belief systems.” What a convincing way to bring on world government almost overnight! In a Speech at the UN in 1987, former US President Ronald Reagan asked “how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world. And yet, I ask is not an alien force ALREADY among us?” Hmmm…

Contact with alien life forms would demand a unified representation for all of mankind; yes indeed: a world government. And, of course, over the past 70 years, Hollywood has mentally programmed the world to accept that any such contact would be with the Elite’s key representative, the United States. If one day soon little green men from Mars were to tell any human, “take me to your leader”, the proper landing strip will, of course, be the White House lawn.

The think-tankese conclusion: “The Global Risks Report is the flagship research publication of the ‘World Economic Forum’s Risk Response Network’ providing an independent platform for stakeholders to explore ways to collaborate on building resilience to global risks.”

Translation: Whoever controls the global agenda, the politically correct limits of debate and technological change, has an awfully huge edge over the rest of mankind, whether they are grouped by regions, nations, ideologies, demographics, raw material wealth, or whatever.

Actually, all this rings much more like an attempt at generating self-fulfilling prophecies, rather than on trying to understand how to tackle the world’s future problems.

Goethe was right: coming events do cast their shadows forward. The global elites’ mad drive to impose world government on all of us is exactly that: an increasingly dark shadow bent on dragging us all into the darkest night.

This entry was posted on 30 August, 2013.

Chavez copycat vs. US poster boy: ‘Either way prospects not good for Venezuela’

An election victory for Henrique Capriles would enslave Venezuela to capitalist interests, while a triumphant Nicolas Maduro could trigger a US-engineered Latin American Spring, author Adrian Salbuchi has told RT.

Acting President Maduro is currently riding a wave of Chavez-style socialism, but is lacking in the charisma that allowed his predecessor to maintain his power base for so long. And while his challenger Capriles has pledged to change the face of Venezuelan politics, many fear that his presidency would leave the country open to US imperialism. Venezuelans will go to the polls on Sunday to choose their new leader following the death of Hugo Chavez on March 5.

RT:We know that Nicolas Maduro vowed to continue Chavez-style socialism, but can he bring anything new to the country?

Adrian Salbuchi: It’s going to be very difficult for him because the demise of Hugo Chavez left a huge vacuum in Venezuela and if anything we have to look at it objectively: Hugo Chavez did not have many new ideas of his own. His main power base was his extreme charisma, he was a very attractive and popular populist leader. Although he did not bring much new to the table in terms of new ideas; in actual fact, he had to go backwards in time to more traditional socialism. His main asset was that he was so popular and such a forceful leader throughout Latin America and the rest of the world, and that is one of the main problems that Nicolas Maduro has, he does not have the same popularity and charisma.

RT:Will Maduro ever be able to fill Chavez’s shoes? Does he possess the same charisma and popularity?

AS: He fares rather well, although very far behind Hugo Chavez. What he is doing is surfing on the Hugo Chavez wave, and that’s why he is using the memory and image of Hugo Chavez, the actual ideas and discourse that he gave the people. But Nicolas Maduro himself really has no special personal power base that he can fall back on, that’s why it’s really Hugo Chavez “in spirit” who’s really in the election through Nicolas Maduro, so to speak.

RT: Have Chavez-era policies been successful for the country or not?

AS: Well, there’s a lot of debate about that, the economic policies have been good for the lower class in the sense that Chavez redistributed very fairly and very extensively oil export dividends and funds with the lower classes, but the middle class has been very strapped for various reasons. There’s a lot of regulation, and business has not done so well in Venezuela because of the fact that rather than venture on to a more revolutionary true socialist scheme in Venezuela, Chavez limited himself to redistributing oil wealth. So the policies inside Venezuela have not been good. He is very highly respected in Latin American, however, for his very shrewd and independent foreign policy which has really been the pride of many in Latin America over the last decade.

RT:Let’s talk about the second candidate now, Henrique Capriles. He wants to create a free-market economy but is that something Venezuelans want?

AS: Some do, some don’t. Some Venezuelans are definitely tied in with the interests of the US, and Mr. Capriles Rodonski is not only tied in with the interests of the US, the corporate interests and even the governmental interests. He is also very tied in with Zionist powers, especially in Israel. He is very well seen in Israel, he is very well seen by the World Jewish Congress and other international Zionist organizations, which as we all know move a lot money globally. So in that sense the fact that he is promoting a free capitalist ideology for Venezuela would have the effect of bringing in a lot of international capital into Venezuela, but Venezuela will cease to be the independent country it is now.

RT:Would a turn towards capitalism, as Capriles wants, be good for the country?

AS: In every country people are rather short-sighted. They want their own personal situation to improve starting next Monday. But if you look at it not short-term but rather long-term, Hugo Chavez and hopefully Maduro have done a very good job for Venezuela and the region in the long term, something that I am sure that Capriles would not because he would completely align Venezuela and bow to US requirements and banking and global financial interests.

RT:Capriles said that he wants better ties with the US – would that lead to Washington dominating and even dictating Venezuela’s domestic policies?

AS: Absolutely, they tried to do that exactly eleven years ago when on April 11 and 12, 2002, they staged a coup d’état where Mr. Capriles was one of the key people. He was only too young then and that’s why they chose another guy by the name of Pedro Carmona, a businessman who only lasted 48 hours. But Mr. Capriles is definitely the face of Washington inside Venezuela.

I wouldn’t be too sure. No doubt the incumbent Mr. Maduro has a lot going his way. But either way the prospects are not good for Venezuela because if Capriles wins there will be a complete realignment in favor of the US, and if Maduro wins, which is the most likely outcome, I wouldn’t be surprised if America tried to engineer a Latin American Spring starting in Venezuela.

Adrian Salbuchi is an international political analyst, researcher and consultant. Author of several books on geopolitics in Spanish and English (including ‘The Coming World Government: Tragedy & Hope’), he is also a conference speaker in Argentina and radio/TV commentator. He writes op-ed pieces for RT Spanish as well as RT English, and is a regular guest on alternative media radio and TV shows in the US, Europe and Latin America. Adrian currently hosts his TV show ‘Segunda República’ on Channel TLV1 – Toda La Verdad Primero – in Buenos Aires, and is founder of the Second Republic Project (Proyecto Segunda República), a sovereign governance model for Argentina, Latin American countries and elsewhere. His website is: www.asalbuchi.com.ar;

This entry was posted on 23 April, 2013.

Francis: The ‘End of the World’ Pope

After the white-smoke “fumatta” signaled Argentina’s Archbishop of Buenos Aires Jorge Bergoglio now heads the Catholic Church, the attention turns to significant, if subtle, signs surrounding the naming of the new Pope.

As soon as Msgr. Bergoglio was chosen, in the privacy of the Vatican Cardinal Giovanni Battista’s first question to him was, “What name would you like to be known by?” to which he replied “I shall be called Francis I”.

Moments later, when presented to the world from the Basilica overlooking St. Peter’s Square Pope Francis announced to the world, “You know that the duty of the conclave was to give a bishop to Rome. It seems that my brother cardinals went almost to the end of the world to get him. But here we are.”

An interesting and significant phrase filled with foreboding in these troubling times, many perceive of apocalyptic worldwide turmoil. Particularly to those lending credence to the prophesies of Irish Saint Malachy, a 12th century Archbishop of Armagh who had a vision when visiting Rome of 112 future popes that the Church would supposedly have from his days onwards.

Malachy wrote down short emblematic and symbolic descriptions for each which have been fulfilled with uncanny precision to this very day.

According to that vision, the 111th pope was Benedict XVI, whom he described as “The Glory of the Olive” which makes him the next-to-last pope.

Malachy could have very well been way off the mark by whole centuries when you consider that some popes like Pius IX in the 19th century reigned for a full 34 years, whilst others like last century’s John Paul I only reigned for 33 short days. And yet, as we enter 2013 – just months after 2012 with its symbolic End-of-Time aura – we suddenly have a new (the last?) pope being chosen.

A lightning strikes St Peter’s dome at the Vatican on February 11, 2013. Pope Benedict XVI announced today he will resign as leader of the world’s 1.1 billion Catholics on February 28 (AFP Photo / Filippo Monteforte)

Many “firsts”

Even if Francis I is not the last pope, he certainly makes an interesting list of Catholic firsts: the first non-European pope in almost 1500 years; the first Jesuit; the first to choose Francis as his name; the first to succeed an abdicating pope in six centuries.

Why all the expectation? Because for the 112th pope on Malachy’s List he wrote these ominous words: “In the final persecution of the Holy Roman Church, there will sit Peter the Roman, who will pasture his sheep in many tribulations, and when these things are finished, the city of seven hills will be destroyed, and the dreadful judge will judge his people. The End.”

If Malachy’s List continues to hold in its uncanny precision to the very end, then Pope Francis I is the last pope of the Roman Catholic Church.

On the very same day that Benedict XVI shocked the world with his unprecedented and unexpected resignation, a bolt of lightning struck St. Peter Cathedral’s Dome, an image that went around the world. “The hand of God” many thought, only this time not alluding to an Argentine football player but rather a sign of the times to come for the Vatican: the coming of an Argentinian pope.

The monsignors are said to take this and other prophecies – notably the Vision of Fatima – quite seriously, which might help to explain why other possible papal candidates who either carried the name Peter or came from Rome were discretely left aside so as not to tempt Destiny.

Either way, Francis I is as he himself unwittingly said, an “end of the world” pope coming as he does from far off Argentina.

Opposition Cardinal in Argentina

As Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Bergoglio championed the plight of the poor in a very hands-on manner, which set him at loggerheads with the now ten-year-old, increasingly left-wing Nestor and Cristina Kirchner Regime.

His criticism of their government got stronger as the years went by, specifically targeting the Kirchner government’s corruption, political mismanagement and hypocrisy.

Since Msgr. Bergoglio would persistently lash out at the Kirchners during the solemnities of the Te Deum marking the anniversary of Argentina’s 25th May 1810 Revolution in Buenos Aires Cathedral which is traditionally attended by the President, his family and cabinet. Starting in 2005 the Kirchners decided to celebrate this anniversary elsewhere in the country to avoid Msgr. Bergoglio… In fact, President Cristina Kirchner has not met with him in almost three years now.

Though a moderate in many aspects – especially in his drive for Ecumenical inter-faith relations (he was just invited to visit Israel), and in his embracing of Second Vatican Council reforms – he has, however, systematically opposed same-sex marriage which became legal in Argentina in 2011, and strongly opposes abortion laws that are being promoted by both the left and the “liberal” right.

Msgr. Bergoglio is an ardent devotee of the Virgin Mary whose protection he invoked in his very first message urbi et orbi. The first place he went to pray as pope was the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin at Santa Maria Maggiore.

Then Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina offers a Holy Thursday mass in the Hogar de Cristo shelter for drug users, in the Parque Patricios neighborhood of Buenos Aires, March 20, 2008. (Reuters)

A House Cleaner in the Vatican?

As a sign of the times to come, Francis I is also the first pope in history to choose a name that honors one of Christendom’s most important saints: Saint Francis of Assisi, a 13th century reformer who preached by setting an example for all.

Although from a wealthy family, he chose to live in poverty and austerity telling his followers that a good Christian’s duty is to “Preach the Gospel always, if necessary use words”; meaning thereby that the best preachers are those setting the best examples, something the Church seems to have increasingly forgotten in modern times.

Saint Francis founded the Franciscan Order and its female counterpart founded by his spiritual sister St. Claire, both of which made vows of poverty. His preaching got him into trouble with local secular and Church authorities even landing him in jail.

As today, the Church of St. Francis’s time was very much in need of a major internal clean-up. Francis of Assisi reproached the pope in front of all his cardinals for their excessive attachment to luxury, and their banality and mundane ways. Later, Pope Innocent III would finally approve his predication and approved the founding of the Franciscan Order.

So, will Pope Francis I do as his spiritual predecessor and wage a veritable war for greater austerity inside the Church, requiring its highest authorities to set the example, both inside and outside the Church?

This May 24, 2011 file photo shows then cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, posing with the jersey of San Lorenzo’s football team, which he supports, in Buenos Aires. (AFP Photo)

Will he really do something about prelates accused of improper sexual conduct, cutting them off fully and completely from the Church, and not just “transferring” them away to some quiet place hoping their immoralities and perversion will just go away, as if by magic?

Will Francis I also fully and thoroughly clean up the Vatican Bank (Institute of Religious Works) forcing it to cancel shady financial deals, reject usury-based financial income, and putting its monetary wealth to work for the poor?

Again, will he identify and weed out the truly guilty of such crimes and perversion, severing all Church ties with them?
In short, will Francis I do something none of his predecessors seems to have had the will to do over the past fifty years, which is not to sweep all this mess under the carpet, but rather cleaning the place up for real?

That all remains to be seen.

Hundreds of millions of honest Catholics the world over, including in his native Argentina, certainly hope that he will.
Others, much closer to him now, who reside inside the Vatican, however, tremble at the thought that he might actually do just that.

Clearly a grave danger for Pope Francis, when one remembers that another pope – John Paul I – had pledged when chosen that he would clean up the Vatican Bank after its Banco Ambrosiano/Freemasonry scandal. Alas! John Paul I appears as Pope No. 109 in Malachy’s List, carrying the phrase “De Medietate Lunae” (of the Half of the Moon”): when elected in late August 1978, there was a half-moon in the sky and he died at the next half-moon…

St. Francis of Assisi (Image from wikipedia.org)

Which Francis?

But we’re not really sure whether Msgr. Bergoglio chose his papal name only because of the Saint from Assisi. It may have been to honor other Francis’s like St. Francis Javier, or even 16th century St. Francis de Borja both of whom were, like himself, Jesuits.

The Jesuits – The Society of Jesus – are a 16th Century order founded by Spaniard St. Ignace of Loyola, as a militia to defend the Church against the forces of reformation and other dangers to the faith.

The Jesuit’s strong-willed militancy got them expelled several times from the American colonies and also from Europe. Even the Church itself suppressed them. They have an autonomous leadership under its Superior General whom many refer to as the “Black Pope” alluding to the Order’s great leverage inside then Church. Jesuits are known for being shrewd and sharp intellectuals with a keen sense for political and social strategy, and a very strong will to promote and drive their goals and objectives.

Maybe Msgr. Bergoglio is honoring all of these Francis’s. But the one that has caught the Catholic world’s imagination is clearly St Francis of Assisi, in which case much will be expected of Pope Francis. No pope – until now – has ever chosen that name which many perceive as emblematic of a key enemy of certain castes of mischief-makers inside the Vatican.

Pope Francis prays during his inauguration mass on March 19, 2013 on St Peter’s square at the Vatican. (AFP Photo)

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

This entry was posted on 11 April, 2013.

Hey, Cyprus… Let’s go back to basics!

Can we have a common-sense explanation of why eurozone finance gone mad threatens to kill the otherwise healthy real economies of European Nations?

Much is being said about the Euro crisis exploding today in Cyprus which – like its recent Greek, Irish, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian versions – continues to fester like a malignant tumor in the body politic and economy of the European Union.

Economics: an exact science or a branch of psychology?

When times are stable and predictable, economics is treated like a science by bankers, academics, journalists and politicians aligned to the money-power elite.

All economic and social woes are explained away as resulting from the “laws of the economy” and the “invisible hand of the market”. Economists’ theorizing mumbo-jumbo never tells you is that the “invisible hand” is moved by a muscular “arm” that is directed by a perverse brain…

They try to convince us that it’s “normal” for markets, sectors and entire countries to go up, down, sideways, even dive into mega-collapses.

Such economic nonsense is normally signed by Harvard, LSE or Chicago University eggheads, suitably prestiged with Economics Nobel Prizes, and lavishly promoted by the mainstream specialized media like the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times.

However, as soon as the economic weather turns foul and the waves of currency instability, winds of banking crises and tornados of panic start rocking the boats of national and regional economies, that’s when the “science of economics” takes a really bad turn and.. it’s every many for himself! Or… every banker gets “government” to bail them out…

In economics what counts is Confidence and Trust, either real or perceived. That’s why banks’ head offices tend to look like veritable fortresses or gigantic skyscrapers, often with imposing temple-like columns, giant staircases and forbidding iron-clad gates. The idea was clear: when you enter a bank, you enter the Temple of Mammon. Financial Olympuses like the FED, Bank of England, and most every central bank beckon you to “trust” them, just as you trust your God when you enter Church; to have “confidence” in them for, like the Almighty, bankers want to make you believe that they too reign for ever and ever…

But, alas, as Patrick Young writing on RT Op-Edge on Cyprus clearly explains, “confidence remains a rather intangible item. Measuring trust is rather a black art. We can never be absolutely certain we have 100% trust”.

Indeed! Trust is like virginity: once it’s gone, IT’S GONE. So when trust turns sour regarding a particular bank, or rumors arise of impending monetary collapse, or some major corporation is about to be “AIG’ed” out of existence, then “trust and confidence”turn into bank-runs, panic and deadly collapse.

Workers walk next to the historic wagons of La Brugeoise at the garage El Polvorin, in the neighborhood of Caballito, Buenos Aires.(AFP Photo / Alejandro Pagni)

What Cyprus 2013 shows is that, like Argentina 2001, “trust and confidence” have little or nothing to do with reality especially when passed through the mainstream media’s ‘Lies Machine’ for, like all perceptions, they can be manipulated to fool, confound, hide ugly truths and distort.

When things start going really bad, fraudulent lies are maintained for as long as possible to give those who DO know the truth, the chance to exit quietly and unscathed. Once they are at a safe distance then – yes: all hell can be let loose!

That happened during Argentina’s massive banking, financial and monetary collapse of 2001/2: social chaos, dozens killed in clashes with police, 50% of the population buried below the poverty line, 40% drop in GDP, and yet…. not one single private bank folded!

Deja vu “all over again”

Argentina’s then-president Fernando De la Rúa and his Rockefeller-Soros wizard Economy Minister Domingo Cavallo did everything the mega-bankers needed to weather the storm, but nothing to help “we the people” who lost life savings, jobs, homes, health benefits…

Not surprisingly, after more than a decade Argentina’s government ensures a “business as usual” banking atmosphere: politicians and megabankers always cozy up to each other (money-sloshing tends to do that…).

What about “we the people”…? Argentine workers continue biting the dust suffering all sorts of government-triggered abuse – inflation, a total foreign exchange lock-down, and ferocious tax collector persecution. Why? When President Kirchner of Argentina must choose between local workers and global megabankers, she systematically chooses the latter… with suitable media marketing of course.

What’s it really all about?

Example: If you’re having a drink at the pub and your mate knocks your pint of beer on your lap: Ooops! Sorry!! Acccident… If he does that again 5 minutes later: Gosh what bad luck!!! If he does that a third time: HE’S DOING IT ON PURPOSE! For some reason, it’s the guy’s behaviour pattern so best to keep away from him!

Now look at recurrent sovereign-debt banking crises: Argentina suffered four “debt crises” over the past forty years that were all so similar to what later happened in 2008 in the US; which was identical to the banking crises in the UK and Iceland, which were then repeated in Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy; which flared last year in Greece and today robs Cypriot workers down to their bones. Accident? Bad luck? No… It’s a System!

We are in fact dealing with major fraud perpetrated by the global megabanking establishment and done “legally” because they pay for, finance, position and control key government posts in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of governments in just about every country.

Whether Argentina or Brazil, the US or Britain, Spain or Italy, Greece or Cyprus. Same story; even the same players.

Why?

Because the global megabanking establishment have worked really hard through their media, universities and their own players to blind us to a key factor no one ever talks about: the difference between public money (issued by the State) and private money (created by private banks almost out of nothing).

Public money are the dollar, euro, peso and pound bills circulating in different parts of the world issued by public banking authorities, normally a national central bank having monopoly issuance rights. Any private citizen doing the same will, if caught, end up in jail. And rightly so because counterfeiting currency adds money to the system but no work is added to the Real Economy. The message to the people is clear: You want money? Work for it!

Private money, however, is created by the private banking system thanks to Fractional Lending which legally allows them to create loans for 10, 20 or 50 times the amount of deposits in their vaults and then charge interest for them! But private bank money is just a figure on your bank statement or a blip on your ATM screen. Like all screens it can go blank “in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye…” The message to the bankers is clear: You want money? Create it for nothing!

AFP Photo / Patrick Baz

People instinctively understand this which is why millions of Argentinians cued at their ATM’s waiting to get some “real money” (even if Mr. Cavallo’s “corralito” limited that to 250 pesos per week). Fast forward eleven years to Cyprus: same picture of people trying to withdraw 100 euros before they’re all gone.

Sovereign Debt Death Trap

1) The private megabanker cabal uses their leverage/control over governments and politicians so legislation is passed ensuring that the central bank never provides the right amount of public money the real economy of goods, services and investment needs; i.e., no credit.

4) Bankers and politicians refinance debt again and again and again, until it balloons way beyond repayment possibilities of the victim-nation.

…Oh, the wonders of compound interest!!

Take the high road or the low road…?

Say you’re president of a country and you need to build a 100 mile road costing $ 120.000.000 over a one year period, at an investment rate of $ 10.000.000 per month to pay for steel, cement, constructors, architects, workers, etc. Everything is set to go; you have two options:

Option 1: Ask private bankers to loan you $ 120.000.000 at, say, 10% interest which means you are indebted by $ 132.000.000. The bankers funding you will, no doubt, impose certain conditions like you’re having to use such and such a construction company, insurer, consultant, cement, steel providers….

Final cost: probably closer to $ 140 to 150 million. Irresponsible modern politicians will of course just dump that debt into the federal deficit black hole. Let the next president or prime minister tackle it!

Meanwhile, compound interest makes the debt grow and grow and grow: music to mega bankers’ ears!

Even more stupid: for a country like Argentina the loan will be in Dollars even though everything they need to build the highway – cement, steel, architects, workers – is available locally and could be paid in local pesos.

Final Result: Public indebtedness in foreign currency in an amount 40 or 50% more than actually needed, that will continue to grow under compound interest…

Employees of Cyprus’ Laiki (Popular) Bank protest outside the parliament building in the capital Nicosia on March 22, 2013.(AFP Photo / Yiannis Kourtoglou)

Option 2: You order your central bank to issue $ 10.000.000 per month for 12 months in local currency. This may have a temporary inflationary effect that is immediately offset because government recovers tranches of that money through taxes that cement, steel and service providers start paying to your tax office, plus labor dues paid by workers. You repeat this for the 2nd, 3rd, 4th months until the 12th month when the highway is finished. Final equation: a good part of the currency issued immediately flowed back to your tax office (who can take it out of circulation), and the rest that remained in circulation can be recovered longer-term through road tolls. In fact most of it will be absorbed by increased demand emanating from real economic growth generated by the new highway (gas stations, diners, new towns, etc.).

Benefits: you did it with your local currency at ZERO INTEREST. If you do your homework right, the temporary transitional inflationary effect can be duly neutralized. Final Public Debt: Zero.

Now, you be the judge: what’s better, financing with public currency issued under a sovereign model, or with private banking money that makes sovereign debt grow way beyond your means, leading to inevitable Sovereign Debt crises in country after country; not by mistake but by design.

That is what megabankers want in terms of money, and that is what the Global Power Elite seeks because public debt ensures full control of countries. To add insult to injury, when bankers really screw things up as in 2008, government and media tell that we must save those nice banks because they’re “too big to fail.” You put your money in a Cyprus bank? Sorry… you’ll have to chip in with 20, 50 or 100 percent of it to save the bankers…

Adrian Salbuchi is a political analyst, author, speaker and radio/TV commentator in Argentina.

This entry was posted in on 2 April, 2013.

At odds on Iran: US doesn’t share Israeli zeal for military solution

When Israel invaded Southern Lebanon in 2006 they were ignominiously expelled by Iran-backed Hezbollah. Since then, the Jewish State has gone into ‘we-have-to-take-out-Iran’ mode, doing everything it can to drag America to war against Iran.

Almost seven years later, Israel’s window of opportunity is closing fast.

‘My big brother America is gonna beat you up…!’

That’s been Israel’s implicit message to Iran ever since. When George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice and the NeoCons ran America, bringing the US on board this war-mongering effort against Iran did not seem a daunting task. Especially considering that inside the US, Israel can rely on a little help from its ‘friends’: the powerful pro-Israel lobby led by AIPAC – American Israeli Public Affairs Committee.

But in 2008 Bush was replaced by Barack Obama whose brand of Democrats are not all knee-jerking ‘Israel First’ fanatics. Add to that the US Military’s growing resistance to a foreign policy that has been led astray by the Israeli lobby, particularly after successive fiascos in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the growing “Arab Spring” mess.

Even more, large sectors of US and global public opinion are becoming aware of the dangers of America’s Israel addiction; of Israel’s use and abuse of the US as a proxy power fighting its wars, something clearly not in America’s national interest. In his message to the UN General Assembly last September, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu produced a cute bomb-shaped graph to show the world just how close ‘big bad Iran’ is to having a nuclear bomb which he says they will use to obliterate ‘good little Israel’.

Netanyahu would have certainly loved to see staunch Zionist Mitt Romney make it to the White House in November’s elections but – Alas! – he didn’t, and Obama’s still living there, and even had the nerve of naming non-Zionist moderate Chuck Hagel as head the Pentagon.

It seems the US is taking an increasingly arm’s length approach to the ‘Iran Problem’ given the very serious geopolitical perils and overtones that any unilateral US/Israeli/NATO military attack on Iran would spell, which might even lead to direct confrontation with Russia.

Meanwhile Iran will not back down on its nuclear program, an issue the Obama Administration is taking an oddly calm view on. Significantly, the US even gave Argentina a subtle nod to negotiate with Iran over the 1994 AMIA terror bombing in Buenos Aires.

Since, theories have arisen that Bush, the US president at the time, coaxed Argentina’s President Kirchner into falsely accusing Iran, solely based on CIA/Mossad “evidence” delivered in October 2006, right after Israel’s fiasco in Lebanon.

So in light of all this what, exactly, is going on here? Why are the US and Israel at loggerheads over Iran?

Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, uses a diagram of a bomb to describe Iran’s nuclear program while delivering his address to the 67th United Nations General Assembly meeting September 27, 2012 at the United Nations in New York. (AFP Photo/Don Emmert)

America’s Worst Nightmare

Today the US and Israel have increasingly divergent interests and objectives regarding Iran. Israel’s are easy to grasp: Iran is Israel’s geopolitical arch-enemy, and one of the few countries that is up to the task of becoming a strong and credible leader in the Muslim World, especially since one of Iran’s key objectives is to do away with Israel’s hardline rule in Palestine.

Mainstream Western media have continually and falsely noted that “Iran wants to wipe Israel off the map”, rather than Iran merely wanting an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine. America, however, has a different cause for concern.

Nothing to do with Iran’s nuclear program but rather with the US Dollar. For many decades the US, through its Federal Reserve Bank, has abusively printed huge quantities of unbacked ‘Fiat money’ to finance its huge deficit, which today has ballooned to over 15 trillion. All’s well as long as that money circulates and ends up somewhere far away, such as the vaults of the central banks of friendly countries like Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and even of some not so friendly countries like China. Even if it is kept going around and around in the global financial merry-go-rounds of the bonds markets or… the huge global oil market.

“Just keep it flowing and busy in all those markets”, Washington seems to be saying, “…so that we can continue printing more and more of it!” Of course, none dare call it inflation, technocrats have nice buzz-words for things like, “Quantitative Easing I, II and III”, “TARP Funding” and “too-big-to-fail-megabank bailouts…” But call it what you may, inflation by any other name smells just as rotten…

Public Enemies

The US knows only too well that, to a great extent, it is a superpower without much power, because if China decided to sell their almost 2 trillion in US-Dollar treasury bills, bonds and other financial instruments, quickly changing them into Euros, it would spell inflationary disaster for America. Such eventualities however, are unlikely to occur given the complexities of global financial markets; thus, neither China nor any other major US-dollar-holder appears ready to do that – not just now, anyway.

However, there is another much more physical, concrete and strategically complex threat that keeps US leaders awake at night- the oil market. To better understand why America’s joy-ride is fast coming to an end as people’s political awareness grows, let me give you a simple example: Every time Argentina, South Africa or Japan need to buy a barrel of crude oil, its people must work to earn those 100 dollars oil costs in international markets.

The US, however, only needs to print US$100. The same goes if they need money to overrun Iraq, Libya or drone-bomb Afghanistan to smithereens: just print the money and keep the oil flowing and the bombs falling. Get the picture? It’s easy to be a “superpower” that way!

But the picture becomes clearer when you join the dots. Imagine what would happen if those trillions upon trillions of Petro-Dollars spinning and gurgling globally were to suddenly slip from the control of the three – and only three – New York, London and Dubai-based global oil markets solely trading in Dollars?

For instance, if a major oil-producing country or group of countries were to create a fourth global oil market trading not in Dollars but in Euros, say Yens, Rubles, Yuans…? Given the volumes of oil that countries like China, India and Japan gobble up, if successful, such a market would displace very sizeable shares of Petro-Dollar volumes, which would mean fast declining mega-sums of Petro-dollars spinning away from global markets and flowing back towards US-centered financial circuits. Can you imagine what hundreds of billions of freed up Petro-Dollars flowing back to the US in a short period of time would mean?

Reuters/Lee Jae-Won

Weapons of mass destruction

Well, like the proverbial cat playing with a mouse under its paws, since at least 2005 Iran has been openly toying with the idea of opening up a such fourth non-US$ global oil market. China would probably support them as they get a sizeable share of their oil from Iran, so perhaps would India. If the followers of Hugo Chavez hold on to power, Venezuela too might tag along (now do we understand why the US needs to get a strong grip on Venezuela?).

Even Russia, which does not really need Iranian oil, might support Iran for its own geopolitical reasons, considering its growing conflicts with the West. Last year, we even heard strong rumors about Iran selling oil to India payable in gold… Iran fully understands this issue so they are cautiously biding their time. Remember, their Persian forefathers invented chess… So, wouldn’t the US just love to take out Iran to thwart such a threat? I mean, it already happened twice in the last decade:

IRAQ: As part of UN sanctions after the first Gulf War, every year Saddam Hussein was allowed to trade one billion dollars of Iraqi oil for medicines and food. But then, starting in 2000 Saddam started to switch over to the Euro. Suddenly, the world learned from Bush’s NeoCons that Iraq had arsenals of nasty “weapons of mass destruction”; that Saddam had to be “taken out” otherwise mushroom clouds would explode over London, Washington and New York! And so, a decade ago in March 2003, the US, UK and NATO promptly ransacked Iraq and had Saddam Hussein murdered. WMD’s? Ooopss, sorry… didn’t find any!…but: Iraq continues selling its oil in dollars.

LIBYA: In 2010 Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was planning to introduce a new currency to trade North African oil: the “Gold Dinar” in lieu of the dollar. Suddenly, the world learned from the US, France and Britain that Gaddafi was a formidable monster so…in October 2011 he too was taken out and murdered on live TV to the laughter of Hillary “We-came-we-saw-he-died” Clinton. Now Libya lies in shambles but its new pro-Exxon/BP “authorities” trade their oil solely in dollars…

Turning points

The key question now is which shall prevail in the US in the weeks and months to come: American national interest or Israeli national interest?

This is really top level Machtpolitik so, just to be sure everything’s in order, the most obedient Western mainstream media are keeping “all options on the table” running all sorts of headlines to remind us how nasty Iran is, its nuke ambitions, poor Little Israel and its security issues (which is why they’re allowed to keep the sole nuclear arsenal in the Middle East, right?), the delicate state of the global financial system and why no one should be allowed to rock the boat and, of course, the never-ending “War on Terror…”, But now we know.

It is all about oil; it is all about the US-Dollar; it is all about a global financial system being kept artificially alive for mega-banker profit; it is about Israel… The flip-side of that coin gets even worse: It’s not about the interest of the working masses in the US, Europe and worldwide; and it definitely is not about Democracy or Human Rights.

Adrian Salbuchi for RT

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

This entry was posted on 11 March, 2013.

The US is the Don Corleone of International Politics

South America – Venezuela in particular – has been the target of a coordinated campaign by the US government and private industry over the past few years. But those of us who have been paying attention know this is nothing new.

WikiLeaks recently published new documents showing that US global intelligence corporations like Stratfor and its foreign offshoot CANVAS worked hard over the past decade (aided and abetted by US Government agencies) in a failed attempt to overthrow Venezuela’s democratically elected president Hugo Chavez.

Meddling in the ‘Backyard’

The US corporate over-world has always worked closely with the CIA, the State Department and the Pentagon promoting the overthrow – known as “regime change in rogue states” – of governments that do not automatically align to US interests; or, better said, of governments that do not automatically align with the interests of the supra-national global power elite that is deeply embedded inside private and public power structures in the US.

This has been especially true throughout Latin America, traditionally America’s geopolitical and economic backyard, from Mexico to Tierra del Fuego.

For example, September 11th of this year (of all dates!) marks the 40th anniversary of the CIA-backed, financed and orchestrated overthrow and assassination of Chile’s democratically elected president, Salvador Allende.

Allende was replaced by a pro-US and pro-UK military junta headed by General Augusto Pinochet. At the time, private corporations like ITT worked hand in hand with CIA operatives promoting strikes, social turmoil and waging psychological warfare through the local media. Then it was Chile; now it’s Venezuela.

In fact, the 1970s and 1980s saw the Kissinger-designed and executed ‘Condor Plan’finance and diplomatically support various military coups and regimes not only in Chile but in Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, Paraguay and other countries in the region.

Such US-UK support for authoritarian and criminal regimes would only stop when some Latin American general like Argentina’s General Leopoldo Galtieri went too far by doing something really stupid, like Argentina’s 1982 invasion of the Falkland Islands.

Relatives of Argentine soldiers who died during Argentina’s 1982 war over the Falkland Islands decorate tombs at a cemetery. (AFP Photo / Angeline Montoya)

Barring that, all those US-backed coups used local military strongmen trained in the US Military’s School of the Americas in Panama to do as they pleased in their local countries, as long as: (a) they kept those countries aligned to US geopolitical imperatives which during the Cold War meant being staunchly anti-Communist; (b) accepted Chicago-Boys-style financial dependency and artificially created public debts; (c) kept local populations in permanent fear and thus ‘disciplined and orderly.’

Since the fall of the former Soviet Union, however, these tactics changed dramatically. Now US control over Latin American countries is centred on promoting ‘democracy.’Well, actually, “the kind of democracy that we want to see,” as Hillary Clinton so eloquently put it when visiting ‘Arab Spring Egypt’ back in March 2011.

c of State Hillary Clinton (C) shakes hands with Egyptians as she takes an unannounced walk through Tahrir Square, the epicentre of the 18 days of protests that overthrew long time ally Hosni Mubarak, on Mah 16, 2011. (AFP Photo / Paul J. Richards)

Such money-controlled democracy is, of course, no democracy at all, but rather an obscene money-sloshing and media clownery system that catapults their favourite candidates into local positions of power.

When the US has its way as in Mexico, Colombia and Chile, and their candidates win local elections, then it’s all business as usual.